Laadan

Posted by Frank Legros
on 17:39 5/9/02

In reply to: (none)

Hi, Mark

"Anyone want to critique conlang?" I do! Here is one critique which I wrote
this afternoon:
LŠadan, a language created by Suzette Haden Elgin, Ph.D.,
http://www.interlog.com/~kms/Laadan/
Ms Elgin, a respectable grandmother, is currently Director of the Ozark
Center for Language Studies in Huntsville, Arkansas. She was formerly a
professor of linguistics at San Diego State University. Ms Elgin was
interested in the hypothesis that existing human languages are inadequate to
express the perceptions of women. There also occured to her the possibility
that if women had a language adequate to express their perceptions, it might
reflect a quite different reality than that perceived by men. Ms Elgin has
written novels in which the LŠadan language appears.

Well... let us see what is the result of these interesting ideas:

LŠadan has interesting characteristics: it is a tonal language, which is
quite unusual for a conlang. It has four tones : a short low or medium
unmarked tone, a short high tone (as in "ťbril"), a long rising tone
("oůbemid") and a long descending tone (as in "LŠadan"). Pronouncing the
tones entails a little bit of training: you've got to say "LAH-ad-an"
quickly several times to pronounce the word correctly. Except for tones,
phonetics are easy, even "lh", the only sound which has no English
equivalent (it seems to be the same than Welsh "ll").

LŠadan has "b" and "d", but not "p", "t", "k", nor "g"; it has "th", but not
"s". Some Australian languages have "th" but not "s"; but I don't think that
any natlang has no surd occlusives at all. There may be some violation of
linguistic universals here.

LŠadan is a verb-subject-object language, unlike English; and, it has Speech
Act Morphemes (for instance, "bŪi" indicates a declarative sentence, "bŠa"
indicates a question) and Evidence Act Morphemes, which indicate how an
information is known to the speaker: by direct perception, in a dream,
assumed true because speaker trusts source, imagined or invented, etc.
"WŠa" indicates that the information is assumed true, and "waŠ" that it is
assumed false... If you haven't a good ear for tones, LŠadan is not for
you...

As far as I know, some native American languages have Speech Act Morphemes.

LŠadan has many case-suffixes. The system is complete, regular and easy, as
in Finnish or Turkish. Possession is indicated by five different suffixes,
indicating possession by reason of birth, by reason of chance, etc. I guess
that if LŠadan were spoken in real life, those five suffixes of possession
would soon be reduced to one or two by everyday speakers.

LŠadan has 36 pronouns, which are combinations of 12 basic elements ("l" for
first person pronouns, "a" for beloved persons, "zh" for several). "Lazh"
means "us, several beloved persons". Every pronoun has a different form,
depending on whether it refers to neutral / beloved / honored / despised
person(s). There are two plurals: "zh" for several (2-4), and "n" for more
than four, as in Tokharian (I can't remember if it's Tokharian A or B) and
Quenya. LŠadan introduces affectivity into pronouns (how feminine!). In real
life, "beloved" pronouns would probably become "familiar" ones. In one of
the LŠadan texts, "The extremely Old Woman", the mother says "na" (beloved
thou) to her child, who says "ne" (neutral thou) to her. The mother says
"lhene" (despised
thou) to her own senile mother. A repulsively vulgar attitude: why don't
they all say "na"? A little hypocrisy is necessary in every human culture.
Things which cannot be said are expressed by intonation, body language, etc,
but never explicitly by words, as in the LŠadan texts. In French, for
instance, a daughter-in-law uses respectful "vous" when she speaks to her
mother-in-law, whatever she actually thinks of her. In real life, social
conventions oblige people to use polite language, even when their true
feelings are negative.

LŠadan texts are a little bit shorter than their English translations.
Although LŠadan has few consonant clusters, it isn't a really euphonious
language. Whole sentences are pronounced in the unmarked first tone, which
renders them rather metronomic to the ear.

If you want to indicate specifically that something is male, you use the
suffix -id. Parent: thul; male parent: thulid). This may be the only aspect
of LŠadan which indicates that the language is supposed to be a feminine
one.

Could LŠadan be spoken in real life? I think it could, because, in spite of
its shortcomings, it has real qualities: it is regular, precise, concise and
straightforward, and rather easy to pronounce. This feminine language isn't
effeminate (I know it's a bad pun, but I couldn't resist... ).